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Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today
 
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Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (Paperback)

by Joseph Ratzinger (Author), Adrian Walker (Translator)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 165 pages
  • Publisher: Ignatius Press; 3rd Revised edition edition (1 May 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0898705789
  • ISBN-13: 978-0898705782
  • Product Dimensions: 18.3 x 11.9 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 343,365 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #41 in  Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Doctrine

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4.0 out of 5 stars Back to basics concerning the nature of the Church, 25 Jun 2009
By Aquinas "summa" (celestial heights, UK) - See all my reviews
For those familiar with Ratzinger's writings and their themes, this book will come as no surprise. Ratzinger in these talks gets back to basics about the nature of the Church and communion. He notes all the issues which have emerged since the Council, issues which have eroded the confidence of many (including priests and bishops) in the sacramental nature of their office. He shows that the Church's sacramental structure and the Petrine office is based on both the New Testament and on tradition. Familiar themes present themselves including the contrast between true communion (reflecting the inner life of the Trinity) and mere individualism. He contrasts the corporate identity of Israel (now the Body of Christ) with the Cartesian world of the "I".

Thus, we have some classic Ratzinger formulations (which echo some of the great pieces in "An Introduction to Christianity"). Ratzinger shows again and again throughout his work that faith is gift and dialogic in nature, because we, as human beings, made in the image of God, are ourselves destined for dialogue and communion - we cannot exist as an "I" in isolation.

"The "I" was now a fortified stronghold with impassable walls. Decartes' attempt to derive the whole of philosophy from "cogito" - because only the "" stilled appeared accessible in any way - is typical in this regard. Today the concept of the subject is gradually unravelling; it is becoming evident that the "I" locked securely in itself does not exist but that various influences pass in and out of "us"...the "I" is constituted in relation to the "thou" and that the two mutually interpenetrate. (page 36).

"Communion means that the seemingly uncrossable frontier of my "I" is left wide open and can be so because Jesus has first allowed himself to be opened completely, has taken us all into himself and has put himself totally in our hands....Communion makes the Church by breaking an opening in the walls of subjectivity and gathering us into a deep communion of existence". (page 37)

Later on in the books he exploded the dimensions of faith further by urging us to move beyond the temporal dimensions of this time and to look at the faith of the Church and her saints throughout the ages:

"The true majority in the Church reaches diachronically across the ages, and only when one listens to this plenary majority does one remain in the apostolic "we". Faith explodes the self-absolulisation id individual presents; by opening them up to the faith of all times (page 99).
"Faith is not something we excogitate ourselves; man does not make himself a Christian by reflection or ethical achievements. He always becomes a Christian from outside: by means of a gift that can only come from another, through the "thou" of Christ, in whom the "thou" of God encounters him (page 120)

Ratzinger exhorts us to let God enwonder (to coin a word) us, to sculpt us into the image of Christ and this is precisely what must happen in the Church - we must let God make the Church - it is not our own personal project or club. If Ratzinger(now Benedict XVI) is remembered (as I am sure he will in the decades to come), it is because of his great contribution to reminding us that we are beings made for communion and to be ourselves is to burst the bounds of our own being so that we become, as we are intended, the images of the Tri-Personal God, constituted not just in Oneness, but in Community.

I would not say that this is Ratzinger's best book (hence only the 4 stars). "Introduction to Christianity", "The Spirit of the Liturgy" and "Jesus of Nazareth" are in their own league . If this slim books grabs you, well then turn to his great works with joy.
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